Reaching Out
by Devouring Rush
Summary: Tahno/Korra friendship. In which Tahno and Korra have a chance meeting, and Korra gains a better understanding of her ex-nemesis.


He was about ten feet away, just lying there.

"Tahno!?"

As if her voice where the key to his activation, his hands slapped the craggly stone beneath him as he brought himself to his knees. Korra could only stare as he huffed air desperately to his lungs, struggling to turn his head, which was still resting against the gritty floor.

She lowered her hands. Relaxed her stance. Even if he was an enemy, he certainly wasn't a threat.

"Uhvatar. What the fuck are you doing here," Tahno coughed.

No. Not _Tahno_. _Tahno_ was an arrogant, proud creature. A violent, unapologetic pro-bender. A demanding, passionate force.

The being struggling to lift his own weight from the ground was not any of those things.

Quickly stepping to his side, Korra slipped her arms around Tahno's chest, pressed her own to his back, and lifted. "I came here to find some leverage on Flameo-Noodles supporting Amon. Instead, I found you," she explained testily.

Tahno winced when she let go. Korra turned her head, focusing on the wall behind his own.

He noticed.

"Yeah. They did a real number on me, huh? Found out who I was, and didn't take too kindly to a past bender playin' equalist. Guess I deserved it, though. Didn't really plan it out much," he trailed, his voice growing more hoarse and far off as he went. As though he were speaking to himself more than to the avatar.

It seemed that with his bending, Amon had also taken Tahno, and left an empty sack of skin, bone, and disillusion.

Korra shifted uncomfortably. Folded her arms against her chest, attempting to compress her discomfort. Tried to act in control. "I…Can heal you, if you want," she started.

His eyes flashed something bright. "How," he croaked.

They both knew the answer. He wanted her to say it, though. Wanted her to tell him what he lacked, as though it would make it permanent. However, Tahno knew that no amount of words or half-hearted attempts at bending would solidify it in to his mind.

"Water bending."

Korra said it faintly. Not at all like the spit-fire they both knew she was. Korra blamed it on the atmosphere—the bare, abandoned factory. Everything bold and sure and bright seemed to have died at the door. How else could she explain the person before her?

Tahno grinned bitterly. "Sure. Only losers and rich bastards turn down somethin' free," he chuckled, as though he were attempting to disperse the dreary inquiries from both of their minds.

Honestly, Tahno just despised gloom. It wasn't attractive to him. Not like the slick, seductive lure of arrogance.

Korra rolled her eyes, spun away from him, and went in to a high squat.

Tahno's eyebrows lifted, much to his bruised face's dismay.

"Ok—"

"You know, Korra. I don't think this is _quite_ the time for those private lessons."

Hopping from her position, Korra spun on her toe, an inescapable, furious blush displayed on her visage, and was prepping to throw a punch until she saw his face. Saw it struggling to keep the arrogant smirk he had placed there. Saw his fingers twitching for something to keep a hold of—for water to slip through.

Korra settled for getting in his face. "Listen here, pretty boy, I'm offering you help! And, I know you can barely stand, let alone walk, easily. So, just let me carry you without all of that…._pervert_ talk," she hissed menacingly.

Laughing, Tahno accepted the impromptu piggy back ride. Korra stomped quickly to the entrance. Well, the entrance she forced in to the side of a storage room.

The travel there was silent, except for Tahno's barely audible hisses and groans. Korra imagined that his body was quite uniform to his face.

Naga barked happily, her tail whipping against the lush grass beside the factory when Korra emerged.

Dumping Tahno on the ground, a bit vindictive from his comment, she mounted the polar bear dog. "I'll be right back," she barked.

Tahno gave her a smart salute before rolling to lay on his stomach.

When she came back, not even twenty minutes later, a bucket of water secured to Naga's saddle, Korra could not help but yell.

He was gone.

How?

Korra didn't quite know. However, the most prominent reason that Tahno was no longer limp and despondent atop the grass was that it had not been willingly. Visions of pissed and vengeful equalists came to her mind. Electricity-charged sticks pulling forth screams of violent protest and begs of mercy.

Korra pressed the palms of her hands to her ears, a sick churning filling her stomach. Thinking of people suffering, about _innocent_ people—that she _knew_, nonetheless—, was near unbearable. She hadn't ever had to think of these things in the sixteen years she had lived until arriving at Republic City.

Hopping from Naga, Korra launched the bucket against the flimsy-looking wall of the Flameo Noodles factory. She let loose another scream, heaving and shaking from anger and concern.

If she were being honest with herself, Korra was afraid. Terribly afraid. Korra was frightened of taking care of people. She was overwhelmingly afraid of being the avatar. Of not being good enough. Of _failing_.

There weren't many people she knew, let alone were friends with, and it scared her to think that if Bolin, Mako, Asami, or…_Tahno_ could be in trouble, that she might be helpless to save them.

Korra unclenched her flame-consumed hands, closed her eyes, and loosened her painfully tensed muscles. She took a calming breath, just as Tenzin had taught her. Opened her eyes. Walked in to the factory. And, searched.

Keeping in mind to stay calm and repress her feelings of anger and panic, Korra looked for anything and everything that could give her a clue to where the equalists were heading, or to where Tahno could possibly be.

In the end, her only clue was a sleek bill fold not far from where she had first discovered Tahno, crumpled and alone, rather like the ex-pro bender himself. The world "Wolfbats" was stamped on to its side. All money that might have been within was swindled or used. All that remained was a hastily ripped piece of paper with an address, a few coupons to the Water Tribe joint that Bolin had taken Korra to a few weeks ago, and a rubber band withholding a ridiculous number of hastily written names, with attributes and numbers scrawled on the opposite side.

Wrinkling her nose, Korra shoved everything, sans the paper holding the scribbled address, back in to the wallet. She tossed the wallet on the ground.

Stomped on it with a fire-laden foot.

Watched it burn.

Then, she strutted away, feeling a bit accomplished. Pleased that she was helping someone move on; helping a friend move on. Well, a potential friend.

For Korra desperately desired another friend.

Finding the address took her four hours. Korra knew that because she had been given a pocket watch from Pema, who had proudly exclaimed it was her father's.

Korra loved using the pocket watch. Each time she saw it, or pressed the latch to see the glass covered clock in miniature within, she was filled with a warm sensation. Pema reminded her greatly of her mother, and it was a bitter sweet ache.

As she hopped off Naga, giving her a firm "stay" and a hardened "look of command",—that her father had taught her when Naga was merely a pup—Korra smoothed out the paper for the umpteenth time.

She looked at the apartment complex in front of her and found Tahno. Sitting. Just sitting.

Not limping away from some enemy. Not bleeding on the ground. Not gone, and bound, by Amon's forces.

Just. Sitting.

His arms propped up on his knees, head resting against the unpainted, crumbling wooden wall, as his head faced the sky, which was currently turning stormy.

As he was sitting.

Korra furiously advanced. "You….moronic, stupid, _jerk_! Why did you ju—"

"I couldn't do it."

The hand she was poking him in the shoulder with—Korra happily noting his wincing—suddenly dropped.

"What? But…You did. You got here all by yourself," she articulated, as though she were speaking to Ikki when she was highly wound up.

Tahno gave her a look, then. Something she'd seen from Tenzin every day of training. From Katara when Korra insisted that learning all the elements was the only thing she needed to be the next avatar. From her own parents, when she demanded they visit her every day.

A look that she wasn't getting it. That Korra was missing a point. And, that it was paining the opposite party to hear her not understand.

But, then he smiled. And, he laughed. Not something arrogant or faulty. An honest display of glee. "Yeah, I suppose I did, Uh-vatar."

"So, did you want me to heal you or not," Korra muttered, a bit stunned at how her anger was no longer present.

Wait.

"And, why are you just sitting here for the equalists to find you!?"

Tahno snorted, rolling his eyes. "Not all equalists are trained to _fight_, Korra. Some of 'em are just trained to work."

Face crumpling, Korra folded her arms across her chest, sour at not thinking about that. She'd always assumed that the equalists—ALL the equalists—were a giant armada. Had clumped them with Amon, and his violent tactics. Korra hadn't ever stopped to think that some of them might've been normal people with opposing ideals to her own.

Korra frowned and bit her lip. Tahno, now standing, leaned against the splinter laden wall.

"You could've waited inside," she insisted.

Sighing, Tahno looked away from Korra, watching the neighborhood children kick a ball around.

"I got kicked out. The only reason I had a place to stay was because I was a pro bender. Hell, because I was a bender," Tahno spat.

He smiled at her, but it was bitter again. Korra didn't quite know what to say and so she turned to what everyone said when they were clueless on how to respond. "I'm sorry."

"You know," Tahno drawled. "My mom used to tell me that the worst things happen for the best reasons. But then she died," he chuckled, though his face showed anything but humor. And, his eyes were glazed with memories.

"Oh."

Tahno shook his head.

"Yeah."

Korra gently placed her hand on his shoulder. "There's always room at the Air Temple. I mean…Asami and Tenzin could help you…train…and there's plenty of stuff to do a—"

"Well, Uhvatar, I'm obviously not rich enough to say no." To emphasize his point, he turned out his pockets.

Korra bit her lip, looking back at Naga. At the bucket which was brimming with water. After scouring the factory, she had spotted the water container—that now held a sizable dent. Walking past it, she had sighed, before grudgingly swerving back to scoop the handle up. Korra had passed the park on the way to Tahno's apartment. She had decided to fill up the bucket.

Korra's hand, which had been placed on Tahno's shoulder, dropped to his hand and gripped it gently. An offering of peace. A truce.

And, then Korra's face was engulfed in a blush as she realized just how long she'd been holding Tahno's hand. She cleared her throat nervously.

Tahno chuckled as Korra pulled him to his feet and swaggered over to the bucket laden with water.

"C'mon; hurry up! Let's get you back to being an insufferable little pretty boy, already."


End file.
